Rehab

How do I recuperate from a long week at work? I go to the Banerghata Rehab Centre. And what do I do there? I undergo therapy. Therapy, in the form of cleaning the living quarters of the patients, cooking for the staff, washing the utensils, recording the activities of the visitors, building assorted shelters for the various activities that take place there.

BRC is a wildlife rehabilitation centre. The patients are mostly birds and reptiles injured and displaced by the urbanisation of the areas around Bangalore. Saleem, the bearded keeper, and his bunch of friends look after them till they're ready to resume their lives back in their natural habitats again. There are also the occasional confiscated pets and show animals that need care. These are the 'lifers' - animals that can never make it back in the wild.

The visitors are the birds, amphibians and reptiles dropping by from the National Park. The staff are the humans, the volunteers.

Sometimes though, more than the animals, it's the people that volunteer there that are in need of rehab. Perhaps that's why they volunteer there.

For me, time at BRC is time free from my cares. When I peer out of my binoculars at a Booted Eagle soaring in the sky, there is suddenly no one else in the world. Just me. Or when I watch the Indian Pond Frog calling as the sun sets, bright red behind the abandoned quarry. Sometimes, there is someone else watching. Someone I can't see. I know the eyes are there, but.... The leopard has been seen by others at BRC, but not me. I'm sure it has watched me scan the undergrowth for it a hundred times. Or perhaps, the eyes belong to the huge silhouettes of the elephants that come to feed on the Ragi.

The Shikra chick has grown up. On Sunday, it decided that a kite was coming too close to home, so it jumped on it. The sight of the Shikra, identified by a missing tail feather (a souvenir from its encounter with Bangalore's development), diving in on a Black Kite more than twice its size. Nice! It still comes and sits outside the kitchen window and asks for little pieces of meat though.

The rickety jackal is still in his enclosure. No one had seen or heard him in months, so Saleem and I decided to walk through the grass to find him. There was no sign of him until we gave up and headed back to the gate. And then, there he was, hiding in a clump of grass just by the gate. So, he's still around, and the food's not been taken by something else living in there.

And Mr Johnny Walker Mynah. He doesn't like loud voices, and will let you know. I was giving him a dressing down for crapping on my clean jeans when he jumped me, digging his claws into me face. Hmm... I learnt my lesson. Mr Walker's the boss!

And, and, and.... there's so many things ...

Maybe the hide that Ajay and I put up this weekend will help us photographically record the birds that frequent BRC. Maybe it'll just fall over when the wind blows. I'm not really an engineer, you know!